A former federal official is running for Congress because

The “havoc and terror” inflicted on the United States by Trump, his yes men and the administration’s supporters in Congress is a dynamic all too familiar to former US Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn.

“I’ve been on the front lines,” he said.

Five years ago, Dunn was one of the Capitol Police officers who defended members of Congress from the Trump mob on January 6, 2021, enduring a torrent of violent attacks and racial slurs. He held the line amid the chaos, and at one point, perhaps now somewhat ironically, he rushed to perform CPR on a woman on the floor inside Democratic Rep. Steny Hoyer’s office.

This year, just hours after federal agents killed Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, hundreds of miles away in Maryland, Dunn decided to run for Congress.

“I said, ‘We have to do this. We have to do this. People are dying and we have to go back and get in there,'” he recalled in an interview with News themezone this week.

Dunn is running for the seat Hoyer will be vacating for Maryland’s Fifth Congressional District. Hoyer has held it since 1981, but announced his retirement on Jan. 8, just one day after Renee Good was shot and killed by ICE in Minneapolis. Dunn announced his campaign on February 4.

It is his second run for Congress after a narrow primary loss in Maryland’s 3rd District in 2023. When he first ran, Dunn said he focused on the threats Trump posed to democracy and what would happen if he returned to the White House with a Congress willing to enable him. This time, those threats have come true.

“It’s not even an administration anymore. We are in regime territory and we need as many people as possible.” [as possible] that are going to stand up to him, especially when the Democrats take back the House in the next midterm elections, we are going to need people,” Dunn said.

If they send him to Congress, he won’t issue any “blank checks” to agencies or officials who refuse to answer questions, he said, because Congress has the wallet and he intends to keep it that way. Using his subpoena powers as a lawmaker, Dunn said he would force administration officials to answer about ICE’s brute force tactics, its hidden membership and its overall operations. Senior agency officials would come under intense scrutiny and be removed, he said.

“I see the same aggression in these ICE agents that I saw in the rioters on January 6,” Dunn said. “Maybe they are wearing their masks because they will be identified as people who were at the Capitol on January 6.”

“I think we need to abolish ICE,” he added. “As it exists now, I don’t see a form of functionality.”

José Prezioso/Getty

As a 15-year veteran of the Capitol Police, Dunn received training in negotiation and de-escalation tactics. Training (and compliance with that training) is the difference between life and death for the public and for patrol officers. What Dunn sees happening wherever Trump’s ICE agents go doesn’t give him confidence in ICE.

The ICE and CBP agents involved in the shooting deaths of Good and Pretti were trained and I had years of experience, he pointed out.

“These weren’t just some rookies who just made a training mistake,” he said. “We are beyond the point where we can train our way out of this.”

Dunn considers himself “100% pro-police” and “absolutely, period” supports enforcing immigration law to expel criminals like rapists, murderers and drug dealers. What he won’t do is support blanket immunity for police, paint immigrants with a single brush, or ignore the urgent need to improve pathways to citizenship.

“There might be a way to do this, but they’ve shown time and time again that they don’t want to do it. The blatant disregard for humanity, for human safety. They’re hitting people with their cars. They’re tear gassing journalists, peaceful protesters. They’re shooting people. It’s crazy,” he said.

Holding the line of democracy may be his specialty, but it is far from his only interest. Dunn believes that for the Democrats facing off in the Maryland primary, this election won’t really be about big political disputes, as they are largely aligned on issues like health care, education and, in particular, affordability.

“The question is: Who will be able to be more forceful? Who will push every button, pull every available lever, seize every opportunity and use the full weight of the constitutional authority granted to a member of Congress?” said.

In another life, before Jan. 6, Dunn said he would have been happy to just “donate a couple dollars and knock on doors” for his favorite candidate. But he gave up the “luxury” of hanging back and waiting for someone else to notice a long time ago.

“I respect all career politicians, because some are good, but I don’t think this is the time for a career politician. We need someone to restore order, restore faith, restore trust in Congress, in the government, and we only do that responsibly,” he said.

Dunn said he believes the Trump administration’s abuses of power are inextricably linked to all of the “kitchen problems” in the United States. He highlights the impacts on the district he’s running in: DOGE cuts in early 2025 hit Maryland hard, as well as nearby Washington, D.C., and Virginia, leaving laid-off workers reeling as they grapple with a sharply flooded labor market and high costs of living.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty

There are about 150,000 federal workers in Maryland and 75,000 of them live in Maryland’s Fifth Region. According to Hoyer’s office, nearly 20% of all workers in MD-5 are federal employees, the highest percentage of any district nationwide. There are also 48,236 active duty and reserve military members serving in Maryland.

“My friends and loved ones are being affected by this. People all over the country, in the community,” he said. “That’s what this is all about…all roads lead to Donald Trump and his billionaire friends getting these tax breaks, and Donald Trump increasing your net worth because of the presidency,” he said before noting that Trump just defendant the Treasury and the IRS for a payment of 10 billion dollars, out of taxpayers’ pockets.

“He doesn’t care about anyone but himself,” he said.

“My goal is to make sure that people are heard in those hallways, that people are represented in those hallways,” Dunn said. “I want to be in the void where they are being attacked and defend them.”